royals

I clicked on this photo set because I wanted to see Princess Charlene’s hat. I ended up staying in the photo set as a mixture of lust and horror filled my body. Lust because… I’m completely hot for Pierre Casiraghi, and horror because I cannot even believe how terrible Andrea Casiraghi looks these days. Good lord. These photos are from Monaco’s big National Day events, where the royal family all gathers on the balcony of their palace, and then some of them go out to greet the peasants.

Princess Charlene and Prince Albert brought out their heirs, little Princess Gabriella and Prince Jacques. What I enjoy about ALL of these kids is that it’s almost like the Grimaldi genes always do the same thing in kids: they’re all beautifully grumpy blondes, all with the same “bow down, peasant” expression. Pierre Casiraghi is rocking the f–k out of his beard and yes, I know I’m pretty much alone in my attraction to him. But that guy is HOT to me. Andrea is trying to do the beard thing too, only he looks an unkempt heroin addict. What else… Pierre’s wife Beatrice looks impossibly chic. Princess Caroline is trying to wrangle her grandchildren. Princess Alexandra – the result of Caroline’s terrible third marriage – is trying to help out with all of her little nieces and nephews.

… And Charlene’s hat is so bad! She just looks kind of awful and frumpy in general.

James Middleton attended the German GQ Men of the Year Awards last week… for some reason. I still don’t why he was invited or why he attended. James has had a purposefully quiet year, and I wouldn’t blame him if he wanted to hide out and not get any attention, especially considering the state of things. Like, Boomf has been shuttered – James crashed yet another business, and this time he lost millions of dollars in investment because, as it turns out, marshmallows are not the future. James is currently working as some kind of tour guide/host at his brother-in-law’s family’s Scottish estate. James is no longer dating (or pretending to date) Donna Air. I would guess that he’s in debt up to his eyeballs too. So, again, why did he fly to Berlin to attend this GQ event? Perhaps he was paid to attend, and perhaps he was paid to give an interview to a German outlet:

With two new nephews in the family, Christmas is set to be an exciting time in the Middleton household and now youngest sibling James has opened up about what the festive season with Kate and Pippa is really like. In an interview on German TV channel, Leute Heute, the entrepreneur described how Christmas is all about family and gives the Middletons a chance to ‘regroup’.

His comments suggest that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge may once again skip Christmas at Sandringham with with Queen in favour of spending 25th December at the Middleton home in Berkshire. Describing the warm reception guests can expect to receive at Michael and Carole’s £4.7million mansion in Bucklebury, Berkshire, James, 31, said: ‘I welcome people into our family home. I want it to feel like it’s their home. There’ll be turkey, champagne and some wine. For me it’s all about family. It’s one where we can all regroup.’

If he got paid for this, that’s probably a pretty good deal for him – no one is asking him to spill major details about his sisters or his royal in-laws, but he gave enough info to cause some speculation. As for the Daily Mail’s question about whether the Cambridges will attend the Windsor Christmas at Sandringham… well, they did last year, and they tend to trade off years. This would be the year we could expect another “royal Bucklebury court” Christmas pap stroll. Except I doubt Kate and William will go to Bucklebury this year. They’ll probably host Christmas for the Middletons at Anmer Hall, because Will and Kate will be especially keen to be seen at Windsor Christmas again this year. I’ll let you guys figure out why, dare I offend anyone’s sensibilities.

Some days, I do wonder how much of the British establishment’s negativity towards the Duchess of Sussex is simply about her American-ness. Americans do things differently, and our ideas of “what a staff should do” and “work life” differs from the British standards, even more so at the royal level. I imagine that’s part of the culture shock Meghan is feeling right now – not only did she marry a British dude and move to England, she married a prince and now has a full staff of people who are supposed to help her and do her bidding, or at least that’s what she thought. Instead of helping her or doing her bidding, they’re leaking like a sieve to the Daily Mail on the regular. It’s par for the course of any royal household, for sure. But I can’t help but think that “Hurricane” Meghan is sitting there, reading this Daily Mail story and thinking “so the people I employ are running to the Mail to complain about how I want them to… work?” It’s so foreign to us as Americans. You can read the Mail on Sunday’s latest anti-Meg screed here. Some highlights:

Hurricane Meghan is “rewriting the royal fashion rules.” The Queen is said to have expressed surprise that Meghan, a divorcee, wore quite such a white dress for her wedding – an elegant boat-necked creation from fashion house Givenchy. But then the future Duchess of Sussex was always going to do it (or more pertinently wear it) her own way. It’s a boldness that has led to unease among some courtiers. ‘Meghan is being told she needs to start dressing less like a Hollywood star and more like a Royal,’ a source from one of the fashion teams which has visited Kensington Palace told The Mail on Sunday.

Meghan wears black and the Queen is shook. Meghan has “a penchant for non-British designers or her fondness for wearing black – traditionally worn by Royals only to signify mourning. No-one gave that memo to Meghan, who in August not only wore a black tuxedo to a special performance of the musical Hamilton, but caused a further frisson by displaying bare legs a good few inches above the knee. It is said this rebellious spirit has resulted in raised eyebrows from the Queen, who is a stickler for the rules.

Hurricane Meghan failed to wear a hat! While the Queen and Meghan are understood to have a warm relationship, a degree of tension was reported between the pair during their trip to Runcorn, Cheshire, in June. Meghan declined to wear a hat after apparently failing to understand that when the Queen’s aides informed her the Queen would be wearing one, that meant Meghan should follow suit.

Meghan texts her aides, how shocking. Six or seven a day – that’s the number of texts the new Duchess of Sussex sends to palace aides with ideas and requests. She’s an early riser, up at 5am rain or shine, and it is said palace staff have never experienced anything remotely like Meghan’s formidable work ethic, matched only by the incessant stream of ideas about how to shape her role. Quite aside from her publicised engagements, Meghan has been conducting a series of ‘undercover’ missions to meet the British people, particularly those associated with good causes. Well-meaning as she is, her particular brand of ‘up and at ’em’ West Coast energy is an uncomfortable fit with the more formal ethos of some palace staff.

Regarding the texting-at-5-am thing: when an American texts or emails you at 5 am, we’re not expecting an answer that moment. We’re sending you a reminder or a note because that’s when we thought of it, and it’s usually an FYI for the day. CB sends me stuff early in the morning (and I send her stuff at 5 am or earlier too). It’s not that she expects me to be awake, alert and working at that moment, it’s usually just an FYI or reminder of something work-related for the day, like a note about her schedule or mine. And I truly LOL’d at “palace staff have never experienced anything remotely like Meghan’s formidable work ethic.” SO GAUCHE. She has ideas and wants to work! She’s not content to send out press releases about being keen!

As for all the bitching about Meghan’s wardrobe – yeah, I’m a Meg Defender about most things, but I also think fair is fair – she’s made some wardrobe errors and this Mail piece definitely reads like the Queen’s courtiers offering a few somewhat gentle reminders to Meghan that she needs to tighten up her wardrobe choices, particularly around the Queen. The Queen’s courtiers have done the same with Kate over the years too. As for dressing less like a “Hollywood star and more like a royal” - lord help the Windsors if someone with glamorous star power actually makes the royal institution seem modern and sexy, eh?

There were absolutely zero arrival photos, but it seems that the Cambridges and Sussexes were out together at the same event on Thursday night. They attended the Royal Foundation Dinner at Victoria House, and by that I believe it was the annual “holiday” dinner/party for the Cambridges and the Sussexes’ royal foundation, their umbrella foundation which supposedly filters money to other charities. Just know that if you’re donating to Will, Kate, Harry and Meghan’s foundation, they’re going to spend thousands of dollars throwing dinners and parties for their staffers. That’s why there weren’t any arrival photos – when they’re using donor money on their own foundation parties, it’s best not to advertise it. Meghan apparently wore a strapless Roland Mouret number in black (you can see it below). Kate wore a sleeveless Preen gown.

Meanwhile, there’s some news about the Sussex Habitat in the Daily Mail’s Eden Confidential gossip column. I’ve been wondering about this for some time, and I still don’t know why the Queen hasn’t “given” Harry and Meghan a larger apartment in one of the many palaces in London. Right now, their London home is the small, two-bedroom Nottingham Cottage on the grounds of Kensington Palace. Their country home is a rental, and not part of any royal estate. So why hasn’t the Queen given them a property to renovate, so it can be done in time for the birth of the the Royal Polo Baby? Well…

With a baby on the way, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are keen to move up the property ladder from the two-bedroom Nottingham Cottage at Kensington Palace. Royal insiders had widely expected the Queen’s cousin, the Duke of Gloucester, 74, and his Danish-born wife, Birgitte, 72, to move out of their lavish 21-room Apartment 1 to make way for Prince Harry and Meghan. But I hear there is a spanner in the works: Birgitte wants to stay put in the apartment, which is right next door to Prince William and Kate’s huge home.

‘Birgitte doesn’t want to leave,’ one of her friends tells me. ‘And why should she? She and her husband are still full-time working members of The Firm and they were given their apartment by Her Majesty.’

A Kensington Palace spokesman insists it’s ‘not true’ that Harry and, in particular, Meghan covet the Gloucesters’ spacious home. Intriguingly, a royal source tells me that Harry and the American former actress may leave the confines of Kensington Palace altogether.

‘Harry and Meghan want to move, and need more space, but they don’t want to live next door to William and Catherine,’ says the source. ‘They will soon have separate offices and separate lives, so it would make sense for them to live further afield. There is no reason why their London home has to be at Kensington Palace. There are plenty of other options, including using their own money to buy their own place.’

‘Catherine and Meghan live very different lives,’ adds the source. ‘And that is likely to become more marked over time.’

Ah, yes, the Gloucesters, known for all of their full-time royal duties and always raising awareness for… things. I honestly couldn’t pick the Gloucesters out of a line-up and I have no idea what they do, but I’ll take them at their word that they work very hard on behalf of the Queen. Here’s something I wonder: Prince Charles basically has control of Clarence House AND St. James’ Palace now, and does he need ALL that space? He uses Clarence House as his home and SJP as his office space. I remember, years and years ago, hearing that Harry used to have a smallish apartment in SJP. I wonder if there’s room to carve out a larger apartment in SJP, that way the Sussexes and the Cambridges won’t be in each other’s hair constantly? And truly, why hasn’t the Queen already figured out where to put the Sussexes?

Prince Charles organized the “birthday photo shoot” with Getty photographer Chris Jackson. Jackson photographed Charles with his sons, his sons’ wives and Charles’ three grandchildren at Clarence House in London. Two of those photos – the group photos – were released on the eve of Charles’ 70th birthday, and those pics were completely lovely, especially seeing Charles interact with Prince George, and seeing “the Wales line” of succession. Well, Chris Jackson obviously took more photos then just those two, and they’re slowly being released. This was the cover for the Sunday Times Magazine (Charles with Prince Lou), and there a few other “new” photos in that magazine.

Us Weekly had some new details about the photoshoot at Clarence House. Apparently, it went down mid-September, weeks before the Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced her pregnancy. She was probably around two months pregnant at the time (maybe nine or 10 weeks, by my math) and according to Us Weekly, no one knew about her pregnancy during the shoot (except Meg and Harry, presumably). Us Weekly also said that Nanny Maria was on hand, off camera, to keep the kids amused and get them to smile and pose for photos. The photo session with all three kids only lasted 15 minutes and “everyone had to work fast.” And apparently the Cambridge kids are getting progressively more chill with each new birth – George was a handful as a baby, Charlotte less so, and now Prince Lou is being described as “so well behaved. … He is the most adorable, placid little boy you will ever meet!”

Us Weekly’s sources also claim that Charles initially requested that he would like to take portraits with just his grandchildren, but that William and Kate turned him down and said that if he wanted photos with the kids, they had to be in the photos too. Which is very interesting.